2872: Ultima's Vision: Shaping the Future of Tech with AI

[00:00:00] How is AI transforming the way leaders approach business and productivity?

[00:00:06] Today, I'm going to explore this exact question with Scott Dodds, CEO of a company called Ultima.

[00:00:14] And they are not only leading the charge in AI adoption but also pioneering its practical

[00:00:20] applications in the business world because they are one of the select few of early access

[00:00:27] partners for Microsoft Copilot.

[00:00:30] Ultima is at the cutting edge and Scott himself has been personally testing the waters with

[00:00:35] Copilot for some time now and his insights are not just about technology though, they're

[00:00:41] about creating a new era of work where inclusivity, security and so much more are becoming paramount

[00:00:49] and as important as the technologies we're exploring today.

[00:00:53] Today, I'm going to find out more about how AI is redefining the roles of leaders and their teams

[00:00:59] in workplaces across every industry.

[00:01:03] Before we get today's guests on, I need to give a quick shout out and a thank you to the sponsors

[00:01:08] of Tech Talks Daily this month. They are KiteWorks and in a digital age where the landscape

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[00:02:05] But now it's time to get on with the show and invite today's guests on.

[00:02:09] So buckle up and hold on tight because no matter where you're listening in the world,

[00:02:13] it's time for me to beam your ears all the way to Reading here in the UK where Scott is going to

[00:02:18] share his insights and his experiences working with Microsoft Copilot. So a massive warm welcome

[00:02:26] to the show Scott, can you tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do?

[00:02:32] Of course, hi Neil thank you very much for the invitation. My name's Scott Dodds, I'm the CEO

[00:02:36] of Ultima Business Solutions. Ultima is a 34 year old technology transformation

[00:02:42] managed service solipsy business. Ultima provides worldwide service delivery offering 24-7 services

[00:02:49] for cloud security, additional workspace and now data and AI. And we like to describe it as

[00:02:56] providing revenue and reputation protection 24-7 through the design, deployment and management

[00:03:01] of modern hybrid infrastructure for business. So we also like to talk about ourselves being a new

[00:03:07] generation of AI powered technology service providers using AI, leading edge software automation

[00:03:14] to underpin our services. So that's the business that we're in and prior to Ultima,

[00:03:20] I've been in many different roles over many years. Prior to Ultima probably the most

[00:03:24] relevant one is obviously Microsoft for 11 years managing channels, the channels business for

[00:03:28] the UK and indeed in Western Europe as well as being the COO for the UK for a number of years as

[00:03:33] well before joining Ultima. So quite a background is some big American and global tech companies

[00:03:41] as well before joining Ultima. Well there's so much I want to talk with you about today because

[00:03:46] there's a lot of excitement around AI and generative AI and so many big changes that

[00:03:52] we're all seeing and there's a lot of business leaders sat on the sidelines not sure what they're

[00:03:56] going to do next and if we just look at, I mean you said you was at Microsoft, have you just talked

[00:04:00] about the co-pilot for example which I believe is the first change to the Windows keyboard layout

[00:04:06] since the Windows start key back in 1994 which just shows you that the level of change that

[00:04:12] we've got here. Obviously you're a leader at the forefront of adopting Microsoft co-pilot

[00:04:18] within Ultima so can you tell me some of the initial challenges and learning curves

[00:04:23] that you've encountered while integrating this AI into your daily workflow and that journey that

[00:04:28] you've been on? Yes indeed and it is a journey. That's absolutely the right way to describe it,

[00:04:34] it is a journey, learning journey but how to use it. We as a business were early access partner

[00:04:39] with Microsoft so we had some time to use the technology ahead of its general availability

[00:04:45] and as we were already quite well versed in the automation world and the automation

[00:04:49] services we already had a kind of an idea of how much you need to learn about your business

[00:04:55] process to get the best from technology such as RPA, robotic process automation we got into

[00:05:00] a number of years ago and this meant that we were kind of immediately thinking about co-pilot

[00:05:07] as a kind of virtual worker that we could access and also train and that's an important

[00:05:13] concept there because I think it's about learning to work with the AI and we're learning to understand

[00:05:20] how it can benefit the business. The word co-pilot for Microsoft is I think incredibly well chosen

[00:05:25] by them. I think as it really doesn't replace the human element for checking data it produces

[00:05:32] you know hallucination is a real thing. We've experienced that, I've experienced that in the

[00:05:37] recent past where it comes up with things that you know aren't correct but need to be checked

[00:05:42] so it isn't the perfect science at all at this point and so you know we've got to keep a close

[00:05:50] eye on how we work and manage with these co-pilots as they kind of develop across the business.

[00:05:56] On a personal level learning to use co-pilot has been an interesting journey and it's taken

[00:06:03] some time to really learn about the power and capabilities of an integrator, Gerriti,

[00:06:08] the AI as they call it the Microsoft Graph data. So that's the data that sits in everything I do from

[00:06:16] email and outlook to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and obviously almost ubiquitous now is Teams using

[00:06:23] Teams for meetings and so it's everywhere. So using understanding how to use that data and how

[00:06:30] to really you know think of it differently, how to train the AI as it were by learning how to

[00:06:38] do prompts correctly and all these things. So in some ways you can think of as an incredibly

[00:06:42] powerful search tool that goes across everything you do on a daily basis but I think it's way,

[00:06:48] way more powerful than that because of its ability to actually create data to bring

[00:06:54] things together to create PowerPoint slides, to create Word documents, to you know really

[00:07:00] analyze data, summarize it, all those things that we know that

[00:07:05] Gen AI can do but doing that with your own live data is a really eye-opening activity when you

[00:07:12] first start to use it. So for me it's about, it's a learning process to your point about how

[00:07:18] we got into using it and making sure it was ready for our business and I think

[00:07:22] just to maybe summarize that a little bit there's a kind of, there's almost three or

[00:07:27] three or four phases of this for us that we've been going through. There's the kind of get

[00:07:30] ready piece which is just, why do we want to do this and I think it's pretty obvious that most

[00:07:36] businesses are looking at how they would utilize AI in the next few years in their business from both

[00:07:42] an offensive and a defensive perspective. There's clearly going to be companies that come into the

[00:07:47] marketplace, whichever market you're in, they're going to look at using AI to really get a

[00:07:52] foothold and that acceleration in some of the customer engagement or customer services

[00:07:57] or whatever it might be and I think that's an important point. So why are you getting into this?

[00:08:02] As I said we were very deeply involved with Microsoft anyway also with RPA and

[00:08:08] automation so it was a natural step for us but there's the user enablement bit which is getting

[00:08:13] people ready for how they're going to use it, why they should be using it and then there's

[00:08:16] the technical readiness piece which goes in parallel with that to really understand

[00:08:21] how you would use this technology in a safe way within your organization. There's about the

[00:08:26] technical readiness about when you get to the onboarding phase is do you have appropriate

[00:08:30] data security controls or other things that we can I'm sure going to talk about later.

[00:08:34] So there's an awful lot to think about but I think overall and the reason that I'm

[00:08:40] involved so deeply is that it needs in my opinion anyway, it needs sponsorship from the top down.

[00:08:46] This is a transformational technology which has risks associated with this massive

[00:08:51] opportunities and it needs that level of engagement from the top of the organization

[00:08:58] all the way through. It can't be a bottom-up exercise as my point. It needs to be done

[00:09:04] top down and bottom up and I think that's really the key and that's why

[00:09:08] I've been involved personally in making sure I've been doing the demos, we've been doing lots

[00:09:12] of videos, we've been partnering with Microsoft, lots of webinars, activities. It's very

[00:09:18] important that I'm seen to be using this technology and driving it inside all the

[00:09:23] pockets of the organization that can use it. 100% with you and one of the things that

[00:09:28] attracted me to you, I wanted to get you on the podcast is when I was reading that

[00:09:31] you've mentioned that using Copilot is not just about hitting a button on your keyboard,

[00:09:36] it's much more about coaching and training the AI and just to dig a little bit

[00:09:42] deeper on what you were just saying there, is anything you can expand on how that process

[00:09:46] works and maybe share a strategy or two of what you've developed to improve that efficiency and

[00:09:52] relevance to your tasks, all these things that add that business value that people are looking for.

[00:09:57] Yeah I think there's a lot in there. I think that the key is to understand what you're trying

[00:10:00] to do. I think, for instance, the acceleration of content generation is incredible. I think

[00:10:06] people understand that now and you can see how it can bring a lot of different content data

[00:10:11] together to give you some really fast content generation. I think you need to understand also

[00:10:17] and this is one of the things about the readiness in the onboarding phase is you need to understand

[00:10:21] who's actually using some of this technology. We're talking about the Copilot for Microsoft 365,

[00:10:28] so it's the Copilot embedded into everything you do inside your Word, Excel, all the things I said.

[00:10:35] I think you need to understand how people are using that technology. I think, for example,

[00:10:39] I think the stats are still something around Microsoft 365 is still to this day, most users

[00:10:45] are getting around about 20-25% of the power out of its capability. If you don't know what to

[00:10:51] ask it to do, you can't get the best out of it. We're using examples as an example of using

[00:10:57] with Microsoft of building a field visits based on the document with addresses and activities

[00:11:04] and customer names. It will go out and build a table with optimized route planning based on

[00:11:11] just having the addresses post codes in there and compose emails to the participants and send it

[00:11:16] all out. It's not just pulling the data together, it's actually creating documents and indeed,

[00:11:21] in that case, an example, field visit plans, optimized field visit plans so that you can

[00:11:27] drive in the most optimal way and all those things. This is very sophisticated technology

[00:11:33] once you understand how to ask it those questions. That's the key. There's this lovely concept of

[00:11:38] prompt-a-thons. Prompt engineering is this new role that's come out to enable you to learn how to

[00:11:46] ask the code pilot, ask the AI exactly what you want it to do. There's this great acronym

[00:11:52] called GCSE, which is goal, context, source and expectation. Those are the fourth steps

[00:11:58] to asking great prompts. What's the goal of this? What are you trying to get out of it to explain that

[00:12:04] to the co-pilot? What's the context? What's the data using? Where are the sources? What do you want

[00:12:10] it to be returned in? What's the expectation? You want to end a table with a whole bunch of

[00:12:16] different data in the right format. These prompts, much as everyone thinks you can ask

[00:12:22] it a quick question, actually the deeper you go with the questioning and the prompting,

[00:12:28] the more sophisticated the response is. That's the learning process because it takes time to

[00:12:33] really understand its capabilities. You have to start learning. The prompt-a-thon idea

[00:12:38] is a great concept because it's about generating innovation and ideas by putting people around

[00:12:46] the business together and saying, right, what would be the craziest problem I'm up with that

[00:12:52] do something that we think is really valuable to the business? Those are the things that you

[00:12:55] want to get out of it. That's the team learning aspect to this, to be able to go and learn and

[00:13:00] share those prompts around. Once you've created it, you can reuse it across the business and make

[00:13:05] sure that people understand how to use it. Keeping this library of prompts and areas of

[00:13:10] the business that have shown real impact is also critical. There's an enormous amount of

[00:13:15] learning, as I said. It doesn't just jump at you and give you responses. You've got to

[00:13:19] learn how to use it. The acronym GCSE is a very important one because you've got to keep an idea

[00:13:25] of exactly what you're asking you to do. I think when trying to improve adoption of any new tech

[00:13:31] tool, its success is mostly determined by your people and culture within an organization. One

[00:13:37] big topic right now, of course, is the importance of accessibility and inclusivity,

[00:13:42] especially when it comes to technological adoption. How has Co-Pilot helped address some of

[00:13:48] them concerns within Altima? Have you noticed any impact on your team members with language

[00:13:53] difficulties, neurodivergent dyslexia, etc.? Anything you've noticed here?

[00:13:58] Yeah. There are many examples of that actually. Working with Microsoft and our

[00:14:02] videos, we were talking specifically about some of those cases where the Co-Pilot is

[00:14:08] supporting not just language and making smarter emails and smarter documents, but

[00:14:15] actually supporting people with dyslexia, as you mentioned. Reducing significantly the time to produce

[00:14:21] and edit emails and responses. Users feel so much better about responding faster with a Co-Pilot

[00:14:27] coach, as we would call it, and helping check and craft the text. So, it's huge support for the

[00:14:33] individual and reduces the huge amount of worry and stress at the timing of sending messages

[00:14:39] that have to be checked. In some cases, individuals with dyslexia are checking emails

[00:14:47] maybe about hours before they send, and that's not healthy for them. It adds a lot of worry to the

[00:14:55] process of responding to emails and customers fast. So, it can massively help that process. We've seen

[00:15:00] those cases come through. And so, where we're aware of it, we're seeing feedback from the

[00:15:05] teams that are saying, hey, this is really helping craft the responses, but also giving me a

[00:15:09] lot more time back and help to make sure I'm not responding in the wrong way. So, yeah, there's a

[00:15:15] whole pile of different areas there. I think that's an area we're going to explore a lot more over the

[00:15:19] next few weeks and months as we get into it further about how it can help with those specific

[00:15:25] areas as well, and accessibility and inclusivity specifically. And it does feel that in a

[00:15:30] short amount of time, we've seen how the vast capabilities of Co-Pilot have transformed

[00:15:35] the workplace from generating meeting notes to creating visual content. So, just to bring it to

[00:15:41] life for any business see that's listening anywhere in the world, and maybe they've not dipped

[00:15:44] their toes in the water yet, just to bring that to life. Is there a particularly striking example

[00:15:50] of how you've used Co-Pilot to solve maybe an unexpected challenge in the workplace?

[00:15:56] So, yeah, as I said before, very fast production of text images with presentations

[00:16:00] from pulling a web report into a presentation in minutes, not hours. These are the things that

[00:16:05] we've been doing and you can see that as you use Generative AI wherever you're using it.

[00:16:09] But within Co-Pilot, the Co-Pilot system itself, the extension of that Co-Pilot system to other

[00:16:17] data source is to extend your Microsoft graphs essentially. And that's where there's been

[00:16:23] some really powerful developments that we've been playing with in the last few weeks

[00:16:27] around extending it to other data sets. So, we've added connectors, as they call them now,

[00:16:34] to service now through our ITSM services and ticketing systems, and also Dynamics 365, which

[00:16:41] we use for finance operations in our business. And we're using standard connectors, I'm sure,

[00:16:47] available today, but also using the, you know, capability of connecting those things

[00:16:54] using what they call Co-Pilot Studio, where you can generate more access to some of this data

[00:16:59] that you've got in other applications across your business. And so we're seeing huge

[00:17:04] potential benefits from that in the last few weeks just connecting those data sources up.

[00:17:10] So, that's where you use your existing data and your Microsoft Graph and all your emails and

[00:17:14] all your Word documents and your ShareOint data, all the things that you have access to.

[00:17:19] And now you can extend it. Now we can extend it to the service now dates or Dynamics data,

[00:17:24] so we can start really asking questions. And I like the concept of calling it kind of natural

[00:17:29] language BI because that's what we're aiming for with extending the graph. So, like sales teams

[00:17:34] are unable to find latest tick accounts for their customers, whether they do service reviews or,

[00:17:39] you know, customer feedbacks, extending Co-Pilot, we're talking to customers all the time,

[00:17:43] they're wanting to extend Co-Pilot once they get used to it, so understand the

[00:17:47] capabilities of it to other corporate data sources. And this is, I think the key to extensive

[00:17:52] deployment. I think we're going to see more and more of the Co-Pilots starting to, you know,

[00:17:57] generate more and more activity around other data source business. So that's a really exciting

[00:18:02] area rather than just what you see today around how you use it within the office or the

[00:18:08] Microsoft 365 environment, extending that out and really adding the data sources is the

[00:18:12] critical one. So we're going to see massive, massive benefits to that and that's something

[00:18:16] we're working on daily now. So that's about building with connectors or building our

[00:18:21] own connectors as well as the existing ones that are coming out from Microsoft and from

[00:18:26] the vendors. And so I think that's an area that all companies will start to see extensive

[00:18:31] use of in the next few months and years. And of course, on the flip side of everything

[00:18:34] we're talking about when we're talking about possibilities and endless opportunities

[00:18:39] with AI. On that flip side, there's a very worried IT team or C-suite with concerns around

[00:18:45] data security and verification, especially when AI is involved in processing and generating

[00:18:50] information. So how are you ultimately ensuring that Co-Pilots outputs maintain things like

[00:18:56] data integrity and security, particularly when handling sensitive corporate information?

[00:19:02] Yeah, this is the big one that everybody worries about at the start. I think basic

[00:19:07] security tests can be completed quite quickly. I mean, in general we found almost no issues with

[00:19:12] access to protected data because of the way we set up our existing access and identity systems.

[00:19:19] And so if you've set it up correctly and you've got everything pretty much taped as a business

[00:19:23] already then there really should be any issues. However, you can't just take that for

[00:19:27] granted, need to test it. I think Co-Pilot, the Microsoft 365 kind of its search is reasoning

[00:19:35] across your universe of data. So all your emails, meetings, chats, documents and more plus the web.

[00:19:41] And so Co-Pilot inherits your existing Microsoft 365 security, privacy, identity and compliance

[00:19:47] policies. So therefore it's enterprise grade ready at that point already if you've got

[00:19:53] those things in place. Over the past few months we've learned that this experience is

[00:19:59] most effective with help with strong content management management and data governance practices.

[00:20:04] We are the very start working with ourselves and also with our customers.

[00:20:09] To before we roll it out, we do an assessment process which is a kind of technical readiness

[00:20:14] assessment which is not massively complex. It can be very quick to do in a matter of days or

[00:20:20] hours in some cases and enables you to really just get a sense of where the holes are, where

[00:20:26] your data may be more open than it should be or whatever. But to be honest with you,

[00:20:31] exist today using your data services inside the business without Co-Pilot. If you see people

[00:20:37] in that get access to SharePoint and files that shouldn't be there and unprotected,

[00:20:41] you have that risk anyway. What Co-Pilot will do of course it makes it easier to access

[00:20:45] them things if you ask it natural language questions go and find me with this data.

[00:20:50] And so you can test that quite quickly and that's our experience is getting into the test

[00:20:54] phase very quickly. Seeing what the controls are looking like seeing where the holes are

[00:20:59] and it's a really good exercise to do anyway for all businesses to make sure that their data

[00:21:03] security is robust whether you're using things like Microsoft Perview for managing content and

[00:21:10] managing SharePoint advanced management. All these things are part of just the things that

[00:21:15] should be in a security play inside an organization anyway. So in some ways,

[00:21:20] Co-Pilot enables you to accelerate that and find those holes if there are any much quicker.

[00:21:25] So that's really what we would advocate is getting into that test phase very quickly,

[00:21:29] trying it out and seeing where the holes are. So in some ways I would describe as an accelerator

[00:21:34] to your security policy not a negative. And of course when talking about any new technology

[00:21:40] people often get distracted and lose sight of the problems that they're trying to solve or

[00:21:46] the main goals or outcomes. So if we would take a step back from that shinier law and

[00:21:51] distraction of AI, the mantra in IT has always been you can't improve what you don't measure. So

[00:21:58] it's anything else you can share around significant productivity gains that you might have

[00:22:02] witnessed and also how you measure those improvements right from the outset because

[00:22:07] it's so important isn't it? Yeah it is. I think you know it's quite early days,

[00:22:12] it's quite a new technology. We're seeing massive improvements in time and time saving

[00:22:18] and it's quite a question really is what are you doing with that time? How are you getting more

[00:22:21] efficient across the business? I mean if we take sales for example or a number of opportunities

[00:22:27] you could respond to is accelerated. We're kind of measuring that in our CRM systems

[00:22:34] to make sure that we understand how many quotes can be done that day and how many

[00:22:39] responses to RFPs can be done quicker because we're using the Co-Pilot to accelerate the

[00:22:46] collection of that data. So there's some things you can measure quite quickly in there.

[00:22:50] There are some things that clearly in our services area we can measure response to tickets.

[00:22:56] We can use knowledge basing as I mentioned with faster search for knowledge base responses

[00:23:03] using Co-Pilot as well as service now data. There's a bunch of things marketing clearly

[00:23:08] about creating social media content with imagery as well as wording all those things.

[00:23:16] And also huge time and cost saving to be able to produce some of that data,

[00:23:21] PowerPoint creation etc etc. But also just massively improved meetings benefits. I mean I think

[00:23:29] using Co-Pilot within teams, using it for transcription, for capturing our actions,

[00:23:36] all these things. I mean you're going from essentially sometimes half an hour to an hour

[00:23:41] after a meeting doing a follow up making sure everyone's got the actions, everyone's got the

[00:23:46] topics that we discussed. You can do that minutes now following the meeting at internal meetings,

[00:23:51] clearly with customer meetings you have to be careful that you're telling them you're recording it

[00:23:55] and some may or may not be happy with that but for internal meetings massive benefits of how

[00:24:00] we're seeing that. Well we're learning as we go with customers how they feel about having

[00:24:06] the data captured and the transcriptions captured and all those things. So you have to ask.

[00:24:10] But I think internally we're seeing huge benefits in terms of time and response times. Therefore

[00:24:16] it's that ability to respond to more things from sales, marketing, IT perspective. All those

[00:24:24] things are real benefits. So we're starting to see that of course it's about deploying it more

[00:24:28] widely. We've deployed it to smaller groups of people in the initial test phase, piloting phase

[00:24:34] and now we're starting to work out how we roll out where the real benefits are across all

[00:24:38] those different areas. We'll see more in finance, in HR. In HR we're testing an interesting example

[00:24:44] we're testing some of our recruitment with basically talking about how we, if you join us

[00:24:51] in this role whatever the role may be you will get access to co-pilot as part of that role and just

[00:24:56] seeing what the response is from the applicants. It's very interesting now people responding

[00:25:01] saying it would be great to be able to have access to that. I've either not used it yet

[00:25:05] or I want to use it or I am using it therefore moving into a new role would be critical

[00:25:09] for my productivity. So there's a whole host of different areas to look at here but I think

[00:25:14] generally speaking we're seeing benefits everywhere it's a matter of really understanding

[00:25:19] where the biggest benefits are and how to be more focused on those.

[00:25:23] And as someone that has been using co-pilot extensively I'm curious is there any advice

[00:25:28] that you'd give to any leaders or organizations that might be listening and they're looking

[00:25:32] to deploy AI tools like co-pilot and also are there any common pitfalls that they should

[00:25:37] avoid or best practices that you can recommend so they don't end up making those mistakes that

[00:25:42] you probably see many, many times. Yeah I think there's loads of I think

[00:25:47] yeah I would go back to the security piece I would say don't overthink the security aspects I think

[00:25:52] we've tested the basic access rules and as I said it was a great example of how you can test

[00:25:58] out your own you know security identity access pieces so that I think is an important one I think

[00:26:03] it's as I said quite fast the test doesn't get stuck for a long time in IT. IT can be a blocker sometimes

[00:26:12] and I think the top-down leadership on the use and deployment is key within all those

[00:26:17] caveats of making sure it's secure but once you've done that and you've tested it

[00:26:21] I think just get it out there and make sure people are using it and trying it.

[00:26:25] So I think it's about accelerating adoption and letting people try and use it and of course

[00:26:30] now when you're in a pilot stage you're doing it with a relatively limited number of licenses

[00:26:35] to start with and then you're sort of going from there I think getting out are lots of different

[00:26:39] types of area of the business and getting their feedback understanding you know how to

[00:26:43] bring those ideas to get them set around protons and all those things learning how

[00:26:48] to use it is the critical one but I think you need to create this speed of the organization

[00:26:55] wanting to develop and use it not see it as just a toolset they're going to learn how to

[00:27:00] use but how do they get creative with it how does it you know enhance their daily activity

[00:27:05] and I think the other thing I would say Neil is that this really I mean co-pilot for us really

[00:27:10] is a runway to thinking about you know wider use of AI adoption so co-pilot is a very obvious one

[00:27:18] because we all live most companies now they live inside you know the Microsoft Graph and

[00:27:23] Microsoft 365 and whatever it might be and so getting the benefits from that is quite quick

[00:27:28] once you understand where you can go but really that getting the brains of the organization turned

[00:27:34] on to understand how AI can be used in a more extensive way across the organization what does

[00:27:39] it mean for customer engagement what does it mean for operational efficiency all those things and

[00:27:45] that's about how you then maybe look at developing beyond just co-pilot beyond into areas like

[00:27:52] Azure for Open AI and started to think about developing some other applications in your

[00:27:56] business to be able to take advantage of AI so I see it's very much a test case for how AI can

[00:28:02] be deployed and used in an organization and then extended so this that's kind of how we see it

[00:28:07] and I think most companies are now thinking about how they use this and this is a very very

[00:28:12] nice way of getting onboarding an onboarding process with AI really learning how to use it

[00:28:17] I think and if we dare to look into the future how do you see AI tools like Microsoft

[00:28:24] co-pilot continuing to evolve is there any other role that you envision for them in shaping the

[00:28:30] future of work it's like again a big topic right now and any particular developments or

[00:28:34] all capabilities that you might be hoping to see too I mean being someone that's had time to have

[00:28:40] a look at the hood and play with this technology yeah I think I think it's the same point I was

[00:28:44] making about wider integration to other data structures AI is going to be infusing to

[00:28:49] every software platform or technology you use in the business and you say

[00:28:54] all everybody will have their own flavor of generative AI inside their applications

[00:28:58] I think co-pilot as a concept is really interesting because I think it will start to

[00:29:03] be an aggregator maybe of other AIs in the business I think you can start to see that

[00:29:08] with the connectors that we're talking about and how you know co-pilot can be the entry point

[00:29:13] into using AI in other areas other data sources it's hard to see that benefit coming through

[00:29:22] as you start to pull all those those different applications together so I think of course

[00:29:28] you know the technology is changing it's not changing by the month it's changing by the day

[00:29:32] or the week literally and I think you're seeing new enhancements out all the time I think

[00:29:37] Microsoft's roadmap shows a whole host of different things it'll be trying to do this

[00:29:41] different co-pilot coming up for every role there's a different co-pilot coming up for every

[00:29:45] different application area of the business so you know it's going to be extensive across

[00:29:51] everything you do now but I think we now as I said to you well we'd like to think of it as a

[00:29:56] an entry point into learning how to go how we're going to all use that across the business

[00:30:00] but I think this concept of how you as an aggregator of a lot of different AI technology

[00:30:06] is a quite interesting one I think we're going to see more of that over the next six to

[00:30:08] five months with Microsoft and as a technology service provider I think ultimately is one of the

[00:30:15] one of only two early access partners for Microsoft co-pilot so thank you so much for taking the time

[00:30:20] to share your insights share your experiences with us today which will be invaluable to people

[00:30:25] listening all around the world there's a thank you I'm going to see if there's something we can

[00:30:29] do for you now before we let you go because some of the biggest names in business

[00:30:33] VC funding and Tak of either being guests or listen to this podcast so

[00:30:37] is there a person you'd love to have a private breakfast or lunch with and why because he or

[00:30:42] she might just get to hear this but let's see what we can manifest who would he be and why

[00:30:47] yeah there's so many people in the industry I somebody that I really I follow actually online

[00:30:51] trying to keep close to is a guy called boy and slat who's founder of the ocean cleanup

[00:30:59] which is an amazing use of technology and smart engineering to rid the oceans of

[00:31:04] well they're their aim is to rid 90% plus of plastics and garbage in the ocean which is a

[00:31:10] huge issue for the planet and I think somebody like that is just fascinating you know

[00:31:16] I think started the business that started his career at 17 or 18 coming up with these ideas

[00:31:21] that kind of combination of smart technology and smart engineering to help the planet is

[00:31:28] something I found fascinating and think as technology companies we should do our bit

[00:31:32] on that was a whole different podcast on our technology can help the planet and help

[00:31:39] you know ESG and all those things I think that that's an area for me that is just

[00:31:43] you know enormous I think using some of this technology certainly some of the AI technologies

[00:31:47] are going to really enhance the capability of the of the world to make some of these things

[00:31:53] a lot better so that there's an example of a guide really welcome a breakfast with

[00:31:57] oh I love that well we'll put that name boy and slat out into the universe let's see what we can

[00:32:03] manifest together but before I let you go for anyone interested in carrying on this conversation

[00:32:08] I was just said we packed so much into 30 minutes today but anyone wanting to find out more about

[00:32:12] Ultima connecting with you or your team etc where's the best starting point?

[00:32:16] Ultima.com is our as our homepage and please go there you'll see all the details we've got on

[00:32:23] Coop Ilar and the assessment processes what we can do for you across you know your cloud data security

[00:32:30] and work in digital workspace so there's a lot of different places to go and find out the

[00:32:35] data but Ultima.com would be the right place to go excellent well I'll get those links added

[00:32:41] so people can find you nice and easily I just kind of thank you enough for taking

[00:32:44] the time to come on join me today talk about your own experiences offering advice on how companies

[00:32:50] can deploy it themselves and some of the lessons you've learned along the way and of course the

[00:32:56] important importance of support from the C-suite the ROI will not be recognized

[00:33:01] from a financial benefit perspective as well as employee productivity well being perspective

[00:33:06] so many big talking points but just thank you for sharing your insights today.

[00:33:11] Great speechy thanks Neil. So as we wrap up today's conversation with Scott Dodds

[00:33:16] I think it's clear that AI particularly Microsoft Co-Pilot is more than just a tool

[00:33:22] it is a partner of sorts a partner in productivity creativity and inclusivity as well

[00:33:29] and Scott's journey with Co-Pilot at Ultima highlights the importance of leadership in

[00:33:34] embracing new technologies the necessity of adaptability in the face of innovation

[00:33:39] and also the potential of AI to democratize expertise and enhance our work lives

[00:33:47] and I think it's also testament to how businesses can thrive by integrating AI into their core

[00:33:52] operations and emphasizing that the future of work is not just about automation

[00:33:58] it's about elevation elevating our capabilities our inclusivity and our approach to security

[00:34:05] so as I'm left pondering Scott's experiences and the transformative power of AI

[00:34:11] I find myself wondering what's next on the horizon for AI in business how will it impact the workplace

[00:34:19] and how will we as employees continue to evolve with it this is where I put the

[00:34:23] microphone in front of you please share your thoughts join the conversation

[00:34:27] on how we can navigate this exciting frontier together email tech blog writer outlook.com

[00:34:33] twitter linked here in instagram at neil cqs I'd love to hear your thoughts on this

[00:34:40] but I'll be back again tomorrow we'll talk about something completely different tomorrow

[00:34:43] but more than anything just thank you for joining me today and until next time don't be a stranger